Unblocking the Writer’s Blog

I wanted to write about Thanksgiving. Not a whole lot to say, especially when I recall that 19th Century BRIT lit is without a singular reference to Thanksgiving. I guess those British types don’t celebrate the early American colonials thanking God for their safe deliverance from the home soil. Go ahead. Be that way.

I wanted to write about Christmas and all that “good ye merry” warmup to one of my favorite holidays. A Christmas Carol, all the wonderful references to Christmas in Dickens, Austen, Eliot, etc. Hackneyed, don’t you think? Not the references or the works, just my commenting on them. Yawn.
Then there’s the problem of my horrible attitude. I’m stuck in the mud. I am distracted. I’m leaden. I am just not there this year. It’s a bad year (hence this blog). Everyone has them — bad years. Stuff happens. Tragedies occur. Things get lost: Jobs, romances, dreams, goals, peace of mind, foci, motivation. Lost. Misplaced. Whatever…they’re gone. For the first time I am starting to think I’d rather be Lizzie Bennet than myself. Indoor plumbing or no indoor plumbing.

Here’s the worst part…I don’t feel like writing. Usually, I have a stream-of-consciousness-type monologue snaking through my brain. I form opinions. I turn phrases. I make points. I score points off my own inner arguments. I skewer. I mock. Thrust! Parry! I am a verbal rapier! Not so now. Not at all. I’ve buried myself in reading lately and anyone can see that I am just hiding. It’s such a ploy to distance myself from the troubles at hand. I feel like I am a faulty toilet. Someone please jiggle my handle and stop the water-running-white-noise.

I do know that I am not alone in my need for (and method of achieving) escape. Thanksgiving night I feted and fed my wonderful family. Dinner, drinks, stories, drinks, reminiscences, drinks, etc. A lovely evening. My sister helped me do the dishes and just as I was setting up for dessert and icing another bottle of champagne, she gathered her brood and with amazing efficiency bid goodbye to all and ZIP she was gone. She called the next day and apologized for he speedy exit. “But life really sucks lately and I needed to exit my brain and watch The Way We Live Now,” she said, referencing the BBC dramatization of Trollope’s novel (It’s really good, BTW).

I understood completely. My prescription lately has been books about the Reformation and King Charles, and (oddly) foreign movies. Waaaay foreign. Ones I have never really heard of before. People whose names I cannot pronounce. Other people’s problems are so much easier to solve, especially when there are subtitles to help me along. Movies in Spanish fascinate me. My husband (native Spanish speaker) always laughs at odd places. He stops the movie and explains how the meaning of the original Spanish is just a shade different from the English translation, making it more poignant, funnier, fraught with foreshadowing, etc. Watching these movies is almost like having another filter on real life, distancing me from the problem at hand. Reel problems are easier than real ones.

4 Responses

Something that helps is to write every day, at least 500-600 words (roughly a page in MS Word). Even if it’s gibberish, even if you think you have nothing to say.

Like running or cooking or anything else, you also need to mark a point in space and time and declare it Writing Time. If you pre-schedule writing as a regular part of your life, you will have to schedule other things around Writing Time, rather than try to schedule Writing Time around other things.

We all get our allotted share of unasked-for advice, and I think I just gave you yours for the day. Enjoy a peaceful and healing Christmas week.